A six-year-old girl is cleaning a Boston mafia boss's private study at two in the morning, her baby sister strapped to her back with a housekeeper's shawl. She is terrified of one thing: that if she does not finish the room, her mother will lose the only job keeping them off the street. What she does not know is that Roman Duca — the most feared man in Boston — is standing silently in the doorway, watching her. Then she stops. She tilts her head toward the library wall, listening for something no adult in that house has heard in eleven years, and asks him a question that will tear his family open from the inside.

Although Silas Duca was gone and the internal rebellion had been crushed, the underworld of New England was far from peaceful.

News of Roman Duca’s biological parentage leaked to the Providence syndicate within forty-eight hours. Gabriel Moretti Jr.—the current boss of the Providence family and Roman’s half-brother—saw an unprecedented opportunity to claim the entire Boston empire for himself.

"If Roman is a Moretti," Gabriel Jr. announced to the press and the Commission, "then the Duca territory belongs to Providence by right of blood! He is an illegitimate bastard sitting on a stolen throne!"

By Thursday afternoon, a convoy of twenty armored SUVs filled with Providence enforcers crossed the Massachusetts state line, heading straight toward Beacon Hill.

Inside the Duca mansion, Roman was not panicked. He was prepared.

He had converted the entire ground floor into an impenetrable fortress. Steel blast shutters covered every window. Sandbags were stacked along the entry hall. Thirty of the most loyal, heavily armed Duca soldiers were positioned on the roof and upper balconies, equipped with night-vision scopes and tactical rifles.

In the basement safe room—a massive, reinforced vault built five stories beneath the bedrock—Grace, Mia, the baby, and Elena were safely tucked away with enough food, water, and medical supplies to last six months.

Roman stood in the center of his shattered study, wearing a tactical vest over his black shirt, checking the action on an assault rifle.

Dominic walked in, racking the slide of a heavy shotgun. "They just passed the Charles River bridge, boss. Gabriel Jr. brought fifty men. They think they're taking this house in twenty minutes."

"Let them come," Roman said coldly. "They think I'm a Moretti. They think that makes me weak. I'm going to show Gabriel Jr. what thirty-eight years of being raised by Anthony Duca does to a man's soul."

At 2:15 PM, the front gates of Mount Vernon Street were breached.

An armored RAM truck crashed through the heavy iron gates, followed by three black SUVs. Armed hitmen poured out onto the manicured lawn, opening fire on the front doors of the mansion with automatic weapons.

"OPEN FIRE!" Dominic yelled into his radio.

The roof of the Duca manor erupted in a devastating wall of defensive gunfire. High-caliber rounds rained down upon the Providence vehicles, blowing out tires, shattering windshields, and pinning the attackers behind the stone fountains.

Roman walked out onto the grand second-floor balcony, standing tall against the wind, his assault rifle barking with terrifying, surgical precision. Every burst took down an advancing gunman. He moved across the balcony like a god of war, untouched by the bullets striking the brickwork around him.

Gabriel Moretti Jr. stood behind his armored vehicle, screaming into his megaphone: "Surrender, Roman! You're a Moretti! Kneel to your true blood, or we will burn this house to the ground with everyone inside it!"

Roman dropped his empty magazine, slapped a fresh one into place, and leaned over the stone railing.

"I have no blood but the blood I shed!" Roman’s voice boomed across the estate, echoing off the historic brick facades of Mount Vernon Street like thunder. "AND THIS IS MY HOUSE!"

Roman pulled a tactical detonator from his vest pocket and pressed the red button.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The explosive charges Roman had planted beneath the front lawn hours before detonated in a synchronized sequence! Earth, stone, and fire erupted into the sky, flipping two of the Providence SUVs into the air like toys!

The remaining Providence soldiers panicked, throwing down their weapons and fleeing toward the breached gates in absolute terror.

Gabriel Jr. was thrown flat onto his back by the shockwave, his face covered in mud and blood. As he struggled to crawl toward his damaged truck, a heavy leather boot stepped down hard onto his chest.

Gabriel looked up, gasping for air, into the dark, lethal eyes of Roman Duca.

Roman aimed his Colt .45 directly at Gabriel’s forehead.

"Tell the Commission in New York," Roman whispered softly, "that Boston does not belong to the Ducas... and it does not belong to the Morettis. It belongs to me."